In the latter half of the twentieth century, the advent of the computer and the way of thinking associated with it led to a new approach or orientation to psychology called the cognitive movement.  Many are hoping that it will prove to be the paradigm -- the unifying theory -- we have been waiting for.  It is still way too early to tell, but the significance of cognitive psychology is impossible to deny.

The roots of the cognitive movement are extremely varied:  It includes gestalt psychology, behaviorism, even humanism;  it has absorbed the ideas of E. C. Tolman, Albert Bandura, and George Kelly; it includes thinkers from linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and engineering;  and it especially involves specialists in computer technology and the field of artificial intelligence.  Let’s start by looking at three of the greatest information processing theorists:  Norbert Wiener, Alan Turing, and Ludwig von Bertalanffy.